


Denial (?)

by LouPF



Series: CiK universe [3]
Category: Smallfoot (2018)
Genre: "oh i don't want to get attached because i'll get hurt", Angst with a Happy Ending, Denial of Feelings, M/M, Migo is an empath, Self-Denial, prequel to CiK, shut up migo here have a human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-25 03:47:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16653673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouPF/pseuds/LouPF
Summary: Migo writes of falling in love when he's a teen.And then he meets Percy.





	Denial (?)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to Communication is Key, which is why the ending is so abrupt. But you don't need to read CiK to understand this!

Migo writes off falling in love when he's a teen.

And then he meets Percy.

*

It begins when he's young.

Da is so terribly broken and hurt - his pain bleeds from him in crashing, howling waves, seeping into Migo's very blood and bones. The love that had filled their home shattered when ma disappeared, and now only sharpened, chipped edges remain, digging into their flesh and their happiness, beauty turned into fierce fire.

He hates it. He _fears_ it, the pain howling when he tries to sleep, screeching into his ears, hollering mockingly when the tears sting his eyes. It never ceases, never ends, night after wretched night sneaking in between his fur and finding its way into his heart.

*

He learns how it tastes when love turns sour and sharp. It's not easy to forget its shriek of pain, and now that he's experienced it he sees it _everywhere._ It hangs thick over the village, a dulling gray tapestry of crying souls begging for relief.

And absolutely nothing changes.

The yetis keep on smiling, bright and wide and as genuine as ever, but behind their eyes is old and haunted pain. He's seen it before but has never known what it means. Until now, for now he _knows_.

“None of them are okay,” he whispers to Patty, the Gong-family’s mammoth, hand burying into her pale brown fur, pressing his forehead against hers. “They're not okay, and I don't know what to do.”

She gives him no reply, of course. He doesn't expect one, and although the warmth and familiar serenity is calming, it's far from enough.

When he turns around da is there, a sorrowful expression on his face. “Son,” he says, sounding for all the world like a dying man attempting to calm a mourning child, “I know things are looking… well, kinda gray, I guess. But they'll get better! They always do.” He smiles at him, a small wobbly smile obviously meant to be reassuring.

And Migo looks at the darkness creeping around him, tendrils wrapped around his ankles and wrists - and he cannot make himself believe him.

*

Migo sits before the picture of his family, eighty-three years old and broken and hurting.

And the stone is nothing more than stone, cold and harsh and reliable. The adoration he once saw in his parents’ eyes is gone - not replaced with something else, but merely flat. Emotionless.

Cold.

They hurt and were tore apart, their fierce and shared love making the pain that much more painful.

And he realizes as he sits there – the family photo a still mockery of what once brought him happiness – that he wants nothing to do with it.

*

Through the years he receives some attention from the other yetis his age. The girls try their charm on him first, with soft giggles and pretty smiles. They're kind and gentle, both beautiful and wonderful at the same time. And they make great friends, they truly do, but the moment they mention _something more_ Migo turns them away.

(he cannot, in any way, accept their affection when he knows the pain it eventually will bring.)

When it becomes obvious that the girls are having no luck, the boys seize their chance. And they're caring and funny, nervous and secure, handsome and so, so pretty. Alas, they get no response beyond “let's just be friends”.

The enbies try, too - wild and quiet, special and strange like no other, hauntingly beautiful.

And Migo turns away every single one.

But for every person he turns away he makes a new friend, and soon at least half the village has spoken intimately with him. It forges a strong bond between him and them, and though the dull gray tapestry never eases, at least now it seems somewhat lighter.

*

He’s always listened to the Stonekeeper and followed the stones, keeping them high in praise and glorifying their existence. The reason?

Stonekeeper frightens him. Always so kind, always so gentle, always the warm smile on his face – and yet, still the dark cloud of sorrow and guilt and longing hangs above him, looming behind his head and wrapped around his shoulders like an iron-cast cloak. It weighs him down, Migo can tell, the color and sorrow darkening and increasing with every single day that passes.

He fears he will snap and keeps his step light around him, offering him pleasant smiles and being the first to listen to any command. If the darkness takes over, he will not be the first to go.

But then he sees a smallfoot, and he cannot deny his thirst for adventure any longer. He ventures below the clouds, into the nothingness, heart set in ice and determination burning within him, coursing through his veins with such a fierceness that it’s a wonder a smallfoot doesn’t appear out of thin air before him.

And then he finds him.

He’s nothing much – a small, helpless creature that seems terribly, horribly vulnerable in this world. Migo has never seen true violence – doesn’t quite believe that it exists, not yet – but still he worries, and he worries something terribly.

Never has he felt more protective about anything than he feels about this smallfoot. He’s so precious, so small and soft and weak, strange and furless and beautiful in his oddness.

And for perhaps the first time in his life, Migo has no regrets about anything.

(he wants to bring him to his village; to prove his existence, yes, but also to _take him there_ , to show it to him, to impress him and talk to him and _know him_ –)

(he pushes these thoughts away, writes them off as curiosity, and prepares for the trip back up the mountain.)

He brings him into the cave, and when he finds him frozen and pale true terror pinches around his heart, tugging, squeezing –

he lights a fire for the first time in his life. It’s something few yetis know how to do – it’s fallen out of practice through the years, but some of the few elders still teach the younger generations. He saw the flickering flames for the first time carried in Thorp’s hands, and after hours of begging and pleading he got him to teach him how to make them.

There has been no need for their destruction until now.

After they communicate –

(and his heart twists, screams at him, _yells out_ – )

the sharp metal slams closed around his foot, but the pain truly holds nothing against the screeching howl within his chest when the smallfoot leaves him.

(there’s no reason to worry, he comes back right after and the howl turns to a gentle whisper, warm like a summer breeze.)

*

He takes the smallfoot to the village, and his chest swells at the sight of –

(of him, bathed in sunlight and face filled with such awe – hope and curiosity lighting his eyes from within –)

of the village, happy and bright and joyous, filled with the courage to try out new and strange things. For a moment, however brief, the tapestry is lifted, the glowing sky snail shines –

and then Stonekeeper takes him aside and explains their terrifying past.

Migo goes back out there, to the happiness and light, to the snail still beaming, and for once the darkness is strongest within him.

(he can’t believe it, doesn’t _want_ to believe it, and it hurts, it _hurts_ , it feels like he’s about to _burst_ , his ribs tearing through flesh and muscle and skin, heart beating raw and open –)

He takes a deep breath and lets the Stonekeeper have the smallfoot.

(despite everything, despite the pain, despite the intense and incredible worry filling him to the very _brim_ , boiling through his blood – )

(he’s not stupid.)

(the smallfoot is dying.)

*  
He realizes, in the still, aching moment pressed flush in-between horror and terror, that it’s all been for naught.

“He’s in there,” da says, and he knows full well what Migo will do.

In the end it is his father’s acceptance that has Migo hurling himself towards certain doom.

*

He goes below once more, because of course he does. He can’t let either of them do this, not the smallfoot, not Meechee.

(he loves them both he _loves them both he **loves them both**_ **_and he swore not to –_** )

(familiar love never counted but _somehow he’s more than that and –_ )

*

He risks himself for Meechee, for Meechee and Kolka and Gwangi, because they matter to her and she matters to him –

(smallfoot is safe because he’s with his kind, with his murderous and horrible kind, but _are they really like that_ – )

(and he looks at his foot, bandaged and fine and healing)

(and he knows that they cannot possibly be.)

*

The smallfoot finds him before the others, and in the light he looks _gorgeous_ , and Migo’s heart swells with hope and adoration and _damnit all this shouldn’t be happening_ but now that it is he doesn’t really want to fight it –

he shoots him, and it’s the worst few seconds of his life.

(he realizes that it’s for his own best and he wants to _yell_ , because he _knew it_ , he _knew it,_ he **_knew it_** )

*

It’s when the smallfoot bursts out of the crowd he realizes that he’s very much falling in love.

It’s when they achieve peace because of him that he realizes he’s fine with it.

(it’s when they start communicating that he realizes it goes both ways.)

*

Migo writes of falling in love when he’s a teen.

And then he meets Percy, and everything changes.

 


End file.
